


Grow Old With Me

by flawedamythyst



Series: The Elephant In The Room [6]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2011-08-18
Updated: 2011-08-18
Packaged: 2017-10-22 18:36:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,350
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/241248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flawedamythyst/pseuds/flawedamythyst
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>John and Sherlock go house-hunting for a retirement cottage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Grow Old With Me

The estate agent tried to take them inside the cottage first, but Sherlock wasn't having that. “I take it the field is this way,” he said, setting off across the small garden to a gate set in the hedge at the bottom.

“Ah, yes,” said the estate agent, chasing after him. John followed behind, smiling to himself. This was the fifth property they'd looked at with the agency and every time they had been handed over to a different agent, travelling down the chain of hierarchy. This one looked young enough to be the office boy, and John wasn't entirely sure he'd actually done a showing before.

Sherlock picked the lock on the gate without waiting for the agent to sort through his large ring of keys for the right one.

“Hey,” said the agent as Sherlock threw the gate open and strode through. “Wait! You can't-”

“I just did,” called Sherlock as he strode out into the field.

John petted the boy's arm. “Don't worry,” he said. “He's always like this. It's best just to let him get on with it.”

He followed Sherlock out into the field, looking around with pleasure. This was why they were looking at this particular cottage, despite the fact that it would need rather a bit more work than either of them had planned for. The grass sloped gently upwards until it hit the lane, and was adjoined by a small copse on one side, and the edge of a farm on the other. John could already imagine what it would be like to live with so much space around them, especially when compared to being squashed in by houses and people like they were in London.

“This would do, wouldn't it?” he asked.

Sherlock was surveying the field with a faint frown, but he gave a nod when John spoke. “Yes,” he said. He bent down to inspect the soil. “I could plant clover here,” he said. “Along with several other flower types that I'd like to experiment with.”

John looked around again, turning back to look at the cottage from where they were. He imagined it as it would be once they'd repaired the chimney and built on a conservatory that John could use as a study. A swarm of butterflies fluttered over the hedge, darting towards them.

“Look,” he said to Sherlock, pointing. “Even the butterflies like it.”

Sherlock turned, and the calm, thoughtful look fell off his face to be replaced by a scowl. “They're not there,” he said harshly.

John blinked and looked back at the butterflies, who had come closer, dancing in the air above the head of the puzzled-looking estate agent and smiling at John with white teeth. “Oh yes,” said John. “I can see their faces now.”

Now that he knew to look for it, he could see the way the hallucination was layered over the world, the edges looking just a little bit plastic and unreal.

Sherlock made a disgusted noise. “Stop looking at them,” he ordered.

John rolled his eyes. “Just because they're not real doesn't mean they're not pretty,” he said. One of the butterfly-fairy creatures swooped down and landed on his arm, clinging on with tiny fingers.

Sherlock glared at him, then abruptly turned away. “I'd put the hives over there,” he said, and strode off to a far-distant part of the field.

John let him go. It had been nearly twenty years since Sherlock had cured him, something that no one else, even the brain experts Sherlock had been consulting with, had believed would ever happen. The fact that John still occasionally experienced a hallucination – all of them tiny, harmless and easily identified – didn't bother John at all. He used them as reminders that he owed Sherlock a debt he would never be able to repay, and that Sherlock cared for him a great deal more than he'd ever actually express in words.

The creature on John's arm made an odd, chittering noise, and John put out a finger to stroke its hair. It really was rather lovely. His sub-conscious had proved itself to be a lot better than he'd have expected at coming up with strange and beautiful things to show him.

“Um,” said the estate agent, very carefully. John looked at him to see a very worried look on his face.

“Don't worry,” he said, taking his attention away from the creature, knowing that it would have faded away when he looked back. “I sometimes see things that aren't real. It's just the after-effects of a brain injury I had many years ago.”

“Oh, right,” said the boy, his expression not really changing.

John looked back over at where Sherlock was pacing out some shape on the ground, his coat flapping behind him as he went. “Batman!” he called.

Sherlock halted and looked over with the glare that the nickname always prompted. He'd stopped protesting it vocally over a decade ago, although it had taken another couple of years for him to actually answer to it.

“I'm going to look inside,” John shouted to him. “Are you coming?”

Sherlock looked around the field again, then nodded and set off back towards them. Once he was close enough, John reached out and took his hand. “I know what's real now,” he reminded him.

Sherlock grunted an acknowledgement but didn't actually look at him, although he did curl his fingers around John's in return, rubbing his thumb over the back of John's hand. “Well?” he said to the estate agent. “Are you going to show us inside, or do we have to break in through the exceptionally badly-secured windows?”

“Right, sorry,” said the boy, turning away and setting off for the cottage.

“Try and be nicer,” said John. “He's just a boy.”

“He's not a boy,” said Sherlock. He squinted at him for a moment. “He's over twenty-five years of age, probably twenty-seven or eight.”

John looked back at the estate agent. “Oh,” he said uncertainly. He could have sworn he was younger than that.

“Relax,” said Sherlock. “You're not hallucinating. You're just getting to that age when anyone under thirty is a boy.”

John let out a groan. “Oh, god, I'm going to be one of those old buffers who call everyone 'lad'.”

Sherlock grinned. “Yes, you are,” he said. “You're going to be old.”

Old. John had never really thought he'd make it to old, not when he was a child dashing about without a real sense of time passing, or a soldier ducking bullets and watching his friends get blown up, and certainly not when he'd been following Sherlock down dark alleyways to take on ruthless and violent men. He squeezed Sherlock's hand and grinned back at him, taking in the crow's feet at the corners of his eyes and the streaks of grey starting to take over his hair.

“We both are,” he said. “We'll be two old men grumbling about the youth of the day.” The estate agent was at the back door of the cottage now, desperately sorting through the keys in order to get it open before Sherlock took matters into his own hands.

“I've been grumbling about the youth of today since I was seven,” Sherlock said.

John laughed, picturing a tiny Sherlock berating those around him for being brainless idiots. “You'll have to show me how it's done then,” he said.

“With pleasure,” said Sherlock. He raised his voice slightly, “Obviously it's not that key! Use some intelligence!”

The estate agent flustered and nearly dropped the keys entirely.

“Sherlock,” said John with a sigh. “Be nice. He's only a lad,” he added, giving Sherlock a smirk from the corner of his mouth.

That surprised Sherlock into one of his rare laughs. “Well done, John,” he said. “I can see you're going to get the hang of this old age business in no time.”

The estate agent finally managed to get the door open and made a triumphant noise.

“Come on then,” said John, pulling at Sherlock's hand. “Let's go and see where we're going to spend the rest of our lives.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Cover Art: Grow Old With Me](https://archiveofourown.org/works/5173865) by [Trishkafibble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Trishkafibble/pseuds/Trishkafibble)
  * [(PODFIC) Grow Old with Me by FlawedAmythyst](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10597152) by [AvidReaderLady](https://archiveofourown.org/users/AvidReaderLady/pseuds/AvidReaderLady)




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